Therapy for Young Adults
There can be a strange tension in young adulthood: you're expected to know where you're going while you're still figuring out who you are.
Maybe you've done well academically, built a career, maintained relationships, or followed the path you thought you were supposed to take, and yet something still feels wrong.
You may be anxious, overwhelmed, stuck in your head, or unsure whether the life you're building actually feels like yours. You may know how to work hard and meet expectations, but have a harder time knowing what you actually need or what you want.
Therapy can offer space to step out of the constant pressure to figure everything out and begin understanding yourself in a different way.
Young adulthood can bring significant transitions all at once: leaving home, college, graduate school, starting a career, moving to a new city, navigating dating and relationships, becoming more independent, and making decisions about the future.
Even when it seems like these are all “good things”, they can still come with intense stress and confusion.
When you're doing well,
but don't feel well.
Questioning whether you're on the “right” path
Struggling with self-esteem or confidence
People pleasing or having difficulty setting boundaries
Feeling responsible for other people's emotions
Experiencing anxiety in dating or relationships
Feeling disconnected from what you actually want
Struggling with academic or career pressure
Feeling overwhelmed by the expectations of adulthood
You may find yourself:
Overthinking decisions and worrying about making the wrong choice
Feeling anxious even when things are going well
Struggling with perfectionism or impossibly high expectations
Comparing your life, career, relationships, or appearance to other people
Feeling like you're falling behind
Having difficulty slowing down or resting without guilt
Perfectionism & the pressure to get it right
For many high-achieving young adults, perfectionism can look like ambition from the outside.
You may be successful, responsible, and highly motivated. You may be the person other people rely on, but internally, you may feel like you're constantly trying to prove that you're good enough.
Success can bring temporary relief, followed quickly by another goal, another comparison, or another question about whether you could have done more.
Perfectionism can affect school, work, relationships, decision-making, and your sense of self. It can make uncertainty feel threatening and mistakes feel disproportionately meaningful.
Therapy isn't about making you less ambitious. It's about helping you understand when achievement reflects your values and when it has become a way of managing fear, self-doubt, or your sense of worth.
Anxiety & overthinking
Anxiety in young adulthood can be difficult to recognize because it often becomes woven into everyday life.
You may spend hours thinking through a conversation, decision, career choice, relationship, or future possibility. You may seek reassurance, research every option, or imagine every possible outcome before allowing yourself to make a decision.
Sometimes anxiety looks like productivity. Sometimes it looks like procrastination or avoidance.
And sometimes it simply feels like never being able to turn your mind off.
Therapy can help you understand what your anxiety is trying to protect you from and develop a greater capacity to tolerate uncertainty without allowing worry to make every decision for you.
Self-esteem, identity, & figuring out what is actually yours
Young adulthood often involves separating what you genuinely value from what you've learned to value.
Maybe you've spent years pursuing the goals that made sense for your family, school, or community. Maybe achievement has always been one of the clearest ways you've known how to feel successful.
Now you're faced with questions that don't have a straightforward answer:
What do I actually want?
What kind of relationship do I want?
What matters to me outside of achievement?
How do I know whether I'm making the right decision?
Who am I when I'm not performing?
Why don't I feel as confident as everyone thinks I am?
Therapy can provide space to explore these questions without rushing toward an answer.
Developing self-esteem isn't simply about becoming more confident. It can involve learning to trust yourself, tolerate uncertainty, recognize your needs, and build a sense of worth that isn't dependent on achievement or approval.
Relationships, dating, & people pleasing
Relationships can become a particularly meaningful place for anxiety, perfectionism, and self-doubt to show up.
You may find yourself overanalyzing texts or conversations, worrying about whether someone is upset with you, struggling to communicate what you need, or taking responsibility for keeping relationships comfortable.
You may have difficulty setting boundaries because disappointing someone feels unbearable.
Or you may find yourself repeatedly choosing other people's needs over your own and then feeling resentful, disconnected, or unsure of what you actually wanted in the first place.
Therapy can help you understand these patterns and build relationships that allow for greater honesty, boundaries, vulnerability, and mutuality.
Eating disorders & body image
For some young adults, concerns about food, exercise, weight, or body image become closely connected to perfectionism, anxiety, self-worth, or a need for control.
You may recognize that your relationship with food or your body is limiting your life while still feeling unsure about giving up the behaviors that have helped you cope.
Together, we'll explore what the eating disorder has provided for you, what it may be costing you now, and what becomes possible as you develop other ways of coping and relating to yourself.